System and method to monitor, guide, and evaluate breathing, utilizing posture and diaphragm sensor signals

Abstract

A system and method to monitor, guide, and evaluate breathing, with respect to user definable breathing patterns, sequences, and preexisting breathing exercises, utilizing posture and diaphragm sensor signals and a method to process thereof, composed of hardware and software components. The application describes a system which monitors the output signals of sensors as part of a breath training device worn by a user for measuring the state of a user's posture and diaphragm to derive a filtered breath signal. This is obtained using one or more sensors, a microcontroller to receive, process, and transmit sensor signal data, a breath training program which receives, calibrates, interprets, evaluates, and provides feedback on said sensor signal data, utilizing a set of breathing algorithms. The breath training program allows defining a breath pattern by specifying its parameters such as inhalation time, retention, inhalation depth, exhalation time, and constraints on such parameters, and to monitor and evaluate a user's breathing with respect to such a pattern, providing several visually guided feedback methods such as a graph on a timeline displaying evaluation indicators during each phase of a breath, or a game where the user guides a breath level game element through inhalation and exhalation zones to adhere to such a breath pattern.

1 . A method of computing a filtered breath signal for a type 4 BTD, comprising the steps of:
 a) Initially measuring a belly angle range between upright and slouched posture positions of a user, based on the inclination reading of an angle sensor worn near the waistband, belly, or chest area,   b) Computing a relative diaphragm position based on the real-time measured current belly angle of a user within said measured belly angle range, based on the inclination reading of an angle sensor worn near the waistband, belly, or chest area,   c) Setting a relative posture position equal to said relative diaphragm position when the results of a normalization test for a type 4 BTD are true,   d) Subtracting said relative posture position from said relative diaphragm position to compute said filtered breath signal,   e) Repeating steps b to d.